This blog is devoted to the poetry and other lyrical writings of Dr Karl Shuker - in particular his published volume of poetry, 'Star Steeds and Other Dreams' (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2009). Dr Karl Shuker is best known as a zoologist, cryptozoologist, and author of numerous non-fiction books and articles, but he is also a longstanding poet, as revealed and promoted by this blog.

How to purchase Star Steeds and Other Dreams

If you wish to buy this book, which is 230 pages long and is ISBN 978-1-905723-40-9, it is readily available online from its publisher, CFZ Press of Bideford, Devon, UK at http://www.cfz.org.uk/ and also from such major literary websites as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, W H Smith, and sellers on AbeBooks to name but a few. You can also purchase a signed copy directly from me, the author - please email me at karlshuker@aol.com for full details.

Available from Amazon.com , from Amazon.co.uk , and directly from the publisher in quantities at: www.cfz.org.uk.

Friday, 13 July 2012

After viewing this entrancing artwork, the following words were carried to me upon the wind of evening, as light and as free as the dancing notes from the piper's flute.

THE PIPER

The piper plays her pale banshee notes,Soft and shivering in silver elfin dusk,And I am lost, a child alone in the darkness,With only the silent white ravens of FaerieTo greet me, to come to me, or to take me back home.

I have always been fascinated by unicorns - to me, they epitomise the purity and joy of Nature, which have always given me so much pleasure and happiness throughout my life, and without which there would be so little of either for me.

UNICORN IN THE SNOW

The unicorn stepped softly through the snow,Its sparkling horn and hide illuminated by the sunlight above,Caressed by the moonlight before,And dappled by the starlight all about.And as it moved on, so too did the brightness,So too did the whiteness,So too did all life.And when it was gone,So too was the light,So too was the world,And so too was I.

Nothing lasts forever, not even fairy tales, but something will always be present...

POST-OZ

Long after the Emerald City is no more,In a time beyond wizards, witches, and cyclones,When Oz is a distant memory, and Dorothy but a dream,The world will continue, the sun will still shine,And the land will be green…

The wistfully innocent, delicately poignant, and potently nostalgic qualities of the above painting subtly combined and intermingled within my mind as I viewed it, until I found myself expressing my innermost yearnings in the following lines.

YEARNINGS

Ah...For those long-vanished daysOf childhood, innocence, and optimism,When everything seemed possible,And the world was an exciting place,Full of sweet promise and wonder.

Snakes are inextricably entwined among and around the very earliest outgrowths of humanity - their sinuous, unblinking, inherently unsettling, yet intrinsically fascinating image is deeply rooted within the human psyche, and will continue to be for as long as we exist.

BLUE SERPENT

Gazing through unblinking incarnadine eyesAnd intimately ensheathed in cerulean scales,The blue serpent watches long, and waits longer,For of what little concern to it is time,When the azure sky and the glaucous seaAre its infinite dominions to rule through all eternity?

In just a few short, succinct lines, I have sought to convey the ecstacy and the agony, the zenith and the nadir, the dream and the nightmare, conveyed by the bittersweet enchantment of absinthe - the potent green fairy of bewitching intoxication.

MY LADY ABSINTHE

Give Grace to My Lady,To Absinthe of Wormwood,The dream-robed Green FairyOf Delight and Despair.Delight in her smileAs her lucid inebriate,Despair in her scornAs her ague-ridden fool.

Inspired by the spellbinding image above, the following verse calls forth the inner wolf within us all.

WOLF MAGIC

I am the wolf at your door,A howl at your moon.What big eyes I have,All the better to see you with.And what big claws I have,All the better to seize you with.I am the shape in your shifting,The dream in your drifting,The wolf in your wearing,The teeth in your tearing.I am the night and your hunter,And you are the day and my waking.

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